


Define Beauty

by naberiie



Series: Maybe We're From the Same Star: Arcmaiden (Fives/Rabé) ✵ [4]
Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, Pillow Talk, Self-Worth Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-07
Updated: 2017-09-07
Packaged: 2018-12-24 12:05:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12012342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/naberiie/pseuds/naberiie
Summary: “The Kaminoans didn’t create us to be beautiful. They made us to be soldiers. Weapons. How can a weapon be beautiful?”He didn’t like it, being reminded of himself. And that broke her heart, because she knew he was the best thing to ever happen to her.





	Define Beauty

* * *

**"The way to love someone**  
**is to** **lightly run your finger over that person’s soul**  
**until you find a crack,  
****and then gently pour your love into that crack."**

**\- Keith Miller**

* * *

“Fives,” Rabé began, then hesitated and stopped.

He hummed for an answer, eyes closed, a content, faint smile on his lips. She watched, silent, as his bare chest rose and fell - clothes a thing of hours past, peeled away from each other as soon as the door was shut - until his eyes cracked open. He grinned under the intensity of her stare and stroked the small of her back, raising gooseflesh on her naked skin with delicate, teasing touches. They were tangled in the sheets together. Light from Coruscant’s traffic shifted over their faces, throwing them in shadows and soft, ephemeral light. She wasn’t even sure what time it was. Twilight, night, morning. All hazy grays and soft blues. She didn’t know, nor did she much care. _This is a dream,_ she thought, returning his gaze and smile, her own hands trailing over the muscles of his stomach, hips, and thighs. _A beautiful dream._

Her eyes returned to his. She let her eyes travel slowly over the planes of his face, memorizing every feature, every tiny little thing that fashioned the face of her lover. His gaze, soft and fond, shifted into faint concern. “Is something wrong?”

“No, no. Never. I just… I want to say something, but I don’t know how to say it. I don’t know where to start.” So she leaned in close, brushing her lips against his, light and slow. His hand caressed her cheek, lacing his fingers through her thick hair. It was a delicate kiss, tender and sweet in in its hesitancy. She let herself float in this moment cupped away from the steady forward march of time, let herself drown a little in her love, let the currents and motions of his lips, his hands, pull her back, again and again and again.

“You know, I’m in favor of you not knowing how to say things more often,” he murmured when she pulled back and settled on his chest.

She grinned and pressed her lips to his collarbone, tasting the sweat of their lovemaking, before saying, softly, “I’m just… so in awe of you.”

“Of me-? Why?” He sounded genuinely confused - amused, charmed, but confused - like he couldn’t quite understand why he took Rabé’s breath away. If only he could see himself how she saw him. A magnificent and incredible being, kind and generous and hilarious - beautiful, too. He might not believe it, but the way he moved and laughed, the graceful way he put on his armor, even the way he rolled over in his sleep. It was astonishing to her, a soldier’s grace, a soldier's beauty.

Solid, confident, raw power and and strength and potential woven into every muscle and sinew of his body.

Mesmerizing.

She rested her chin in the crook of her elbow, resting on his chest, and traced the lines of his face with her fingertips, like she had gone blind and needed to relearn her way around his body by touch alone. She knew that, if asked, she could paint an exact portrait of him with ease.

He was thinking the same. His eyes, half-lidded and adoring, were liquid, molten gold in the surreal lighting. 

“You have such beautiful eyes.”

She said it softly, she said it slowly, but still his entire body tensed underneath hers, just as she thought he might. Like she had pinched him.

She felt the tension in his body and knew she had plucked them both away from their private, twilight moment.

He blinked, then whispered in a strained voice that pained her to hear, “Uh, heh - pretty sure that’s my line, Rabé.”

“Well, I’m borrowing it. I mean it.” When he didn’t move to answer, she went on, the words rushing out of her, “I mean it - you’re so beautiful, every part-”

“Yeah, well. Luck of the draw, I s’pose,” he interrupted dryly. “Mum always said I was the most handsome out of all her boys.”

She nearly flinched at the harsh sarcasm under the current of his joke.

It was quiet in the room as they studied each other. Their hands, once freely roaming in unconscious patterns of adoration on warm skin, now lay flat and heavy and still. Uncomfortable, tense heat pooled in the spaces between their bodies. He didn’t like it, being reminded of himself. And that broke her heart, because she knew he was the best thing to ever happen to her.

Fives looked away first, glancing down at Rabé’s hand on his chest. He placed his own over it, his calloused palms gentle as they scraped over her fingers. “There’s a million beings in the galaxy who look just like me,” he said quietly. His hand gripped hers, suddenly and tightly, as if he was afraid he would be yanked away from this moment. “My face, my looks… they’re nothing special.”

Rabé bit her lip, regretting ever speaking, even though she still believed it. “That’s not true.”

“As a clone? Yeah, it kind of is. That’s the point. That's the whole point of us.” He met her eyes again. “And don’t say it’s not true because I happen to have a tattoo.”

She frowned. “I wasn’t going to.” She sighed and said slowly, “No, it’s not because of your tattoo. And yes, you have a million mostly identical-”

“Identical.”

“ _Mostly_ identical brothers, but your face, this one, this body of this man and the heart in him, his humor and bravery - _that_ is what I see when I look at him. At you. Your eyes _are_ beautiful, Fives.”

He stared at her.

The silence stretched, aching and breathless for all the wrong reasons.

Rabé pushed herself up. “I don’t - did I say something wrong? What happened to all those jokes about ending up with the best-looking brother?”

“It’s one thing to _say_ something like that.” He opened his mouth to continue, but it was like the words were blocked up in the back of his throat. He shut his mouth, and then his eyes.

 _No_ , she understood. _No, no, Fives…_ “You don’t believe it?”

He hesitated, then muttered softly, “Some days, no.”

“You don’t believe it,” she said again.

“No.” It was a simple, flat statement. _Not just on some days,_ whispered under the short word. _All days_.

“ _I_ believe it. I _know_ it.” She bit her lip, and murmured, “You know I love you, right?”

“Mhm.” She heard the soft smile in his answer before it slowly dawned on his face. That, at the very least, was a good sign. “I do.”

“So…?”

“So… so when you say something like that, when you say I have beautiful eyes - you could be saying that to any clone.”

“...I-”

“You could be laying with any other brother in the GAR and it wouldn’t matter - that’s a fake line. If it’s true of me, then it’s true of all of us.” He looked up at her again, eyes shining with either love or tears or both. “And then I’m - I’m reminded of how - how I don’t _deserve_ you, because you could have ended up with any other clone and never been the wiser to how I feel about you. How I felt since the first moment I saw you. You being with me, and not Jesse or Rex or anyone… it was all chance. That... _compliment_  makes me feel like I’m not unique, that I’m just another number. Nothing more.”

His words, desperate and hurt and quiet, constricted around her heart. But his accusation hurt her more than anything. Did he really think she’d be happy to settle for anyone else? For anyone _less_ ? She let her head fall to his chest as she murmured, “You’re not interchangeable. I fell in love with _you_.”

“We all have the same eyes, though.”

“Not true, I saw a clone with blue eyes the other day. And Boil has red eyes.”

Fives groaned. “Random mutations and body mods, fine. I’ll give you that. But the rest of us - the majority? Have these eyes, and _this_ face.” He raised his hand to his cheek, but faltered over his own skin, his fingers grappling against the air. Like if he didn’t touch the jaw and nose and cheekbones he shared with millions, perhaps it wouldn’t be true.

A horrible twist in her gut reminded her that Fives had never had an issue with being a clone before he had met her.

Rabé reached up and grabbed them, stalling that frantic movement. She kissed each fingertip until his hand relaxed entirely. “I’d know your eyes anywhere. Even if you and the rest of the five-oh-first lined up in identical shiny armor, and I couldn’t see your tattoo. I’d know you in an instant.” She said it like she meant it, because she did. Without a trace of doubt in her heart, she could recognize Fives, the man, anywhere.

He didn’t speak.

So she went on. “I would. I can tell the difference between your laugh and Echo’s, and how you walk is different than how Kix walks.” She tightened her grip around him, burying her face into the crook of his neck. “I know your eyes. I know _you_.”

Fives began to shake, but he still did not speak.

“I just want you to know that when I look at you, I don’t see just a clone. I see Fives. I see _you_. I don’t care about the others. Not in this sense, not in the way I care about _you._ And only you.”

“...Rabé-” His grip tightened on her hand, bruising and desperate. “I’m not - I’m not beautiful.”

“You are,” she whispered. A shuddering breath rose from his chest and she squeezed her eyes shut as he forced it out of his lungs, like it suddenly pained him to breathe. She hadn’t meant to hurt him. She gripped him tighter.

“I’m not. I can’t be.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t - I don’t know how to explain it.” He took another deep, shuddering breath and twisted, so his face was buried in her hair, whispering words all the more intimate because they were alone, “The Kaminoans didn’t create us to be beautiful. They made us to be soldiers. Weapons. How can a weapon be _beautiful_?”

Under the sheets, their legs automatically twined together. She could hear his heartbeat, the thickness of his voice and how it echoed behind his ribs, when she pressed her ear to his chest.

There were times when Rabé was suddenly and violently reminded of the coldness and cruelty of his upbringing. She never expected them, but when they happened, it was like diving into an ice-cold lake. It ripped the breath from her lungs, and she wanted to sob from the unfairness of it all.

Like when she took him shopping for new clothes, something besides his armor and bodyglove and casual blacks. His childlike reactions to the fabrics and colors and infinite, ridiculous varieties of fashion. His face when she had to gently explain that yes, she would buy him that shirt, if he wanted. If he liked it. When they sat together and watched a holodrama; when he tried to cook for her.

She hated that he had such a visceral, stomach-churning reaction to the simple compliment - _but then,_ she conceded, her own voice struggling to work around the lump in her throat, _which Kaminoan, which trainer, had cared enough to compliment him on his worth as a living being, not just his abilities on the battlefield?_

_How can a weapon be beautiful?_

“Because you exist. Here and now. You’re not just a soldier here. Here, with me, you’re Fives. And you’re beautiful.” She refused to use his own word, to fling it back in his face, lest he think she believed it, too.

“That’s not what beauty is.”

She put a hand on his chest, felt his fluttering heartbeat, the breaths he was struggling to take. “You have a heart. You have a mind, a spirit, a sense of humor, cleverness and fears and desires - the circumstances of your birth only matter to me because it brought us together. You are a trooper, you are a clone. I won't ever deny that, because it's so... intertwined with who you are, who you choose to be, what you make of life. It defines you. But you are also a _man_. An individual. A living being.”

He muttered thickly, “Existence doesn’t make someone beautiful. Plenty of ugly things _exist_ \- you think Jabba the Hutt is pretty?”

She rolled her eyes and almost laughed. “Ha. Fine. How do you define beauty, then?”

“You.” His answer was immediate, without hesitation. He continued, soft and reverent, as Rabé lay still in his arms, her breath catching in her lungs, “When I close my eyes, when I think of beauty, I think of you.”

Now it was Rabé turn to be silent, to to bite her tongue in a vain attempt to stop her tears. They were swimming under her half-closed lids already, threatening to spill over.

She hadn’t meant to be cruel, to dig up issues she’d never considered.

“You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” His grip on her body lightened for a moment, and then his arms clutched her tighter than ever. “I don’t know, or really understand how we got here - I’m so glad, so incredibly kriffing happy that we’re here, together, but… but I know that even if _we_ had never happened, that’d still be true. I’d’ve still known you to be the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.”

He paused, took a shaky breath, and whispered into her hair, like he hoped the words would get lost before they reached her, “But you wouldn’t still think _I’m_ beautiful. You would’ve just seen another clone. Just another one of millions.” He stopped for another breath, but when he continued, it sounded like his heart had broken with the words, the jagged pieces ripping his throat apart as he barely managed to mutter, his voice breaking on the words, “And that’s okay! ‘S… _okay_...”

It _wasn’t_.

He started to cry.

Rabé, her face still buried in the crook of his neck, near suffocating under his weight, pressed her hand to her mouth, tried to muffle her own tears as they rose up out of her lungs. His entire body shook like a leaf around her as he pressed his face into her hair, sobbing, his arms wrapped tight around her body, desperately clutching her to his chest like he was afraid it really _was_ a dream, that if he let go, if his grip weakened in the _slightest_ , that she would vanish.

She hadn’t meant - if she’d _known_ -

It was all she could do to cling back, because at the moment, she could not trust herself to speak without breaking down into tears. Fives, ARC trooper of the GAR, previously of the esteemed 501st, battle-hardened soldier and notorious jokester, was weeping into her hair, terrified of a universe where she did not love him back, where she fell in love with another, where he was alone; the very thought of even the possibility of such a life looming and terrible enough in his mind to make him collapse.

He did not think himself worthy of her, and that terrified her. That the man she loved lived in such fear of a life that didn’t exist, that he truly did not think he deserved her.

She clutched him back and stroked his hair, his shoulders, let him cry against her as the emotions and fear tore through his body. _Don’t you see,_ she begged to him, someone, anyone, the Force or Naboo’s pantheon of goddesses, _don’t you see, Fives - I love you, I love you, I love you - you’re not a weapon. You are so much more, you beautiful, strong man, you deserve the stars…_

“My love, my love, I am - I am _so sorry,_ I never meant…” She swallowed thickly, and began again, “You are incredible and complex and I never meant to hurt you, if I had known… you cry, my love, cry and cry until you feel better, even just a little… but _listen_ to me, please. Listen.”

His hand unsteadily reached for hers and she clutched it, their fingers intertwining as she pulled him closer. His tears were drowning him, so she went on, breathless and babbling, trying to make him understand just how she felt about him. _Damn the Kaminoans, damn the cold cloning labs where he’d learned how to fire a blaster while other children played with toys, where he was told to lay down his_ life _if duty called - damn it_ all -

“Fives, love, my light - don’t you see? I had to get to know _you_ in order to realize that you are beautiful - that’s it, that’s the whole entire - you became more and more beautiful the more I got to know _you_ , the more we talked… no, no, maybe I wouldn’t have thought you beautiful. But that whole ‘what if’ timeline, wondering what I would’ve thought if _we_ never happened, it doesn’t _matter_ , because we’re both here and I am telling you - I’m _telling_ you, Fives - you _are_ beautiful. Because of _who you are_ . It’s like… it’s like I can see it, your spirit and energy, how intensely you experience life, in everything you do. It’s like I can see it all in your eyes - that’s why I’d know you from any other clone. You might share the same face, but, _gods_ , Fives, you are wholly and utterly unique. You take my breath away. I’m so lucky, I think I’m the luckiest person in the entire galaxy to know you like I do.”

She continued to stroke him as the fear wracked his body, until finally, finally, it started to subside. She could feel it leave his body, as his muscles released, exhausted. Shaky breaths slowly replaced his gut-wrenching sobs but his grip did not lessen. He did not move, wrapped around her like a cloak. And for that she was glad. If she looked him in the eyes, she was not sure she would be able to speak.

She gathered her thoughts and press on through the lump in her throat, “I think… I think I was always meant to fall in love with you.”

He finally picked his head up at her whispered words, and simply stared at her.

“You _are_ a clone, but you are also the most beautiful person in the entire galaxy. Out of everyone, and everything. And I won’t tell you your eyes are beautiful again, if you want - if it hurts you this much - but I will tell you, every single day, that to me, you are the most incredible and amazing person in the galaxy.”

Fives took a deep, shuddering breath, closed his eyes, and pressed his forehead against hers. In this moment, in this raw, painful, ragged moment, he was letting himself exist without restraint or fear. She reached up to cup his face, gently wiping the tears still silently coursing down his cheeks, wishing that he would forgive himself for the circumstances of his birth, a cruel thing that was not, had never been, his fault. 

More than anything in the world, she begged that he would be kind to himself.

“That’s what beauty is, I think.” Rabé murmured, shutting her eyes, listening, relieved, as his breathing calmed and evened out. “You define it as _me_ , and I define it as _you._ ”

He nodded and whispered, his voice hoarse and breath warm against her skin, “As love.”

“Yes.”

She held onto him, exhausted from so much - but perhaps he was finally being gentle with himself, that he was finally seeing himself as she did.

“I like that definition,” he finally murmured, and she cradled his head against her chest so that he might hear her heart flutter with what she dared to call _hope_.

* * *

 "Dear God,   
you have already made an Atlas.  
You have already made an Achilles and an Icarus and a Hercules.   
You have already made a sacrificial lamb of your Son.  
You have already made so many heroes,  
and you can make another again.   
You can have your pick of heroes. 

So please, I beg you–  
he is all that I have,   
and you have so many heroes  
and the world has so many more.   
**Let him be soft,**  
**and let him be mine."**

- [j.p.](http://pencap.tumblr.com/)


End file.
